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*** UPDATE *** I just got off the phone with Fox Chicago. They accidentally misreported the numbers this morning. The actual numbers are…
Giannoulias 44
Kirk 41
Undecided 10
Other 5
The poll was taken March 8th (the same day as the Quinn/Brady poll) and the margin of error is +/-4.5.
[ *** End of update and text corrected below to reflect update *** ]
* A new Rasmussen poll has Alexi Giannoulias leading Mark Kirk 42-41 44-41.
Rasmussen hasn’t posted the numbers as of 10 o’clock this morning, but I’ll check back later. [UPDATE: Check back after four o’clock for the full poll results.]
So, what the heck is going on? Yesterday’s poll, presumably of the same set of voters, had the governor’s race a lopsided 47-37 Bill Brady lead over Gov. Quinn.
I originally thought that the Quinn/Brady poll was an outlier, but Rasmussen’s US Senate numbers are in line with recent polling…
Again, if Rasmussen polled the same people for US Senate that they polled in the governor’s race, then this is a screwy year, baby. Screwy.
* Anyway, back to the Senate poll. Here are Rasmussen’s numbers for the current poll with their February, December and October results in parentheses…
Giannoulias 44 (40, 42, 41)
Kirk 41 (46, 39, 41)
That’s a huge apparent swing for Giannoulias/Kirk in the past month - a month when the Democrat has been hammered incessantly over his family bank’s troubles. Today was no exception. Tribune…
It’s usually understood that a Democratic president supports his party’s candidates for office, especially when the nominee in question is running for the U.S. Senate seat the president himself once held.
But today Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias’ campaign went out of its way to announce that he does, in fact, have the backing of the White House.
Giannoulias campaign sent out a news release highlighting remarks by President Barack Obama’s press secretary about the president’s support for Giannoulias, who not only is the Democratic nominee running for Obama’s old Senate seat but also is known for being a longtime personal friend of the president’s.
NBC5…
Democratic Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias got a show of support from the Obama White House on Tuesday, but it wasn’t much of a show.
WaPo…
Illinois state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, the party’s nominee for the state’s open Senate seat, visited the White House Tuesday and picked up a somewhat tepid endorsement from press secretary Robert Gibbs.
And Carol Marin predicted today that there will be pressure on Giannoulias to get out of the race…
While Democrats may scoff at any notion of a latter-day Reagan revolution coming to the blue state of Illinois, they are hardly cheered by the challenges facing state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias in his U.S. Senate battle vs. Kirk.
Giannoulias has tried to get out in front of the seemingly imminent failure of his family’s Broadway Bank, but there’s no way to put that story behind him as long as the FDIC could move in at any time and take it over.
Giannoulias met with David Axelrod at the White House on Tuesday. At the same time, Republicans were sending out dispatches with a reminder of President Obama’s recent denunciation of “fat cats who are getting rewarded for their failure . . . bankers don’t need another vote in the U.S. Senate.”
Expect heat on Alexi to exit the kitchen.
Not with those numbers, he won’t.
posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 10:20 am
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If Alexi’s numbers start to tank and he is somehow pressured out of the race, what happens? Does the Democ. State Central Committee then appoint a replacement. Possibly Lisa Madigan and then would the same central committe have the responsibility to appoint someone (Dan Hynes?) to fill the Attorney General spot on the ballot?
Comment by Anon Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 10:33 am
Alexi, PLEASE stay in the race!! A Kirk victory would be great, and proving Carol Marin wrong is an added bonus.
Comment by Finger Pointing Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 10:35 am
Just like for Brady yesterday, a nice, unexpected shot in the arm for Alexi today.
I don’t quite see Marin figures Adam A. is some kind of big heat in the upcoming general election. It’s not like the tea-partiers piled up big numbers in the primary.
Comment by wordslinger Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 10:36 am
Alexi has been working on this for years and has tremendous Greek backing. He came to Rock Island two years ago, visited the high school, politicking about being the youngest state treasurer, etc. With that and a boatload of money you can get all the nice numbers you want.
Comment by Island Girl Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 10:38 am
Looks to me like Rasmussen oversampled downstate Illinois, where Brady is stronger than Quinn right now and Alexi’s banking troubles are relatively unknown.
Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 10:41 am
It seems more and more that all our journalists report on anymore are press releases and tweets.
Comment by George Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 10:42 am
It’ll be very fun to watch all the folks from yesterday who essentially called Rasmussen the spawn of the devil come around to havin’ themselves some Ras love here today.
Comment by Responsa Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 10:43 am
YDD - They wanted to get the opinions of Real America…
Comment by George Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 10:44 am
Not really, Responsa…
If you apply the Rasmussen correction from yesterday, that means Giannoulias is up 54-32 over Kirk.
:)
Comment by George Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 10:46 am
A Fox “News” station “accidentally reported the Republican running for Obama’s old seat outpolled the Democratic nominee.
Right.
Comment by Cheryl44 Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 10:51 am
=It seems more and more that all our journalists report on anymore are press releases and tweets.=
Did you watch SNL last Saturday too?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/07/snl-mocks-cnn-for-being-s_n_489020.html
Comment by Brennan Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 10:53 am
Until the bank troubles are communicated in millions of dollars of negative ads, those poll numbers don’t mean anything.
Comment by Northern Post Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 10:53 am
My take is not to get really excited over one poll that appears to be an outlier.
When a pollster says they have a 95% confidence that the poll is within 4%, this means 1 in 20 polls will be outside the confidence interval.
But even if Brady is polling ahead of Quinn, Brady hasn’t been defined to the non-Republican voters. But hey, maybe there is a “silent majority” for repealing local domestic partnership ordinances and opening gas chambers for unwanted pets. I know his idea about creating more revenue by cutting taxes sounds great.
In fact, I think Illinois should have a negative sales tax. If you spend $20 in Illinois, you get a $1 back. Think of all the people who will flock to Illinois to shop. Everybody will open a store here. The property tax coffers will be flush. No one will be unemployed and income tax revenue will shoot up. We’ll all be so rich we’ll be able to look down on Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa and Kentucky.
Comment by Carl Nyberg Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 10:57 am
Imagine if these polls are right.
Why would Brady be beating Quinn?
Would any Democrat care to give that a credible answer? Not a GOP Kool-Aid drinker, but a Democrat! It might be important. Just saying it is an outlier isn’t an answer. If that poll showing Brady beating Quinn is right - explain how that could be, beyond silly talking points.
Kirk isn’t going to stumble, but Giannoulais will continue to stumble throughout this summer as his bank’s failure makes news. This constant drivel about how Obama isn’t supporting Giannoulais enough is over the top. Obama’s polling numbers shouldn’t be encouraging anyone to think the President can, or should, be a factor this year. So, it doesn’t matter if Giannoulais has Obama’s wholehearted support - Obama couldn’t save him right now, if he wanted to save him. This entire story spin is goofy.
If Brady is doing this well against Quinn, then he should restrict himself to carefully prepared statements written by a committee of careful speech writers. He is going to have to speak for himself on his extremist views and neutralize concerns his social stands have with most voters, not let goofy feminist groups define him.
Brady makes my head hurt.
Comment by VanillaMan Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 10:59 am
Im not sure if they “bank failure” story has burned into the peoples minds yet. It has only been in the last week and a half that the story has been reported on a daily basis. I think that will take a couple of weeks to show up in polling. To be clear, I think this is a different story than “Alexi” loaned money to the mob. That public has appeared to dismiss that story. However, if/when this bank fails, and the story is on the news every day for 2 weeks, and pictures of Broadway Banks signs being replaced by “5/3 Bank” or whatever, that will move numbers.
Comment by Red Ranger Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 11:00 am
==Fox “News” station “accidentally reported the Republican running for Obama’s old seat outpolled the Democratic nominee. Right.==
Not a big deal, Cheryl 44, but I think you either misread, or did not see Rich’s earlier report. Giannoulias *was* shown as polling ahead, but just not quite as much as in the Fox update.
Comment by Responsa Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 11:02 am
@Vanillman -
See my answer above. But until Rasmussen releases crosstabs, we’ll never know.
Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 11:02 am
The mind boggles at Marin’s column today. It just does. End of story.
Now for the statewide races. With Giannoulias and Kirk you’re dealing with two competent people. We more or less go to our tribal bases on this one; and certainly Kirk has, which I think has given some swing voters pause. If Broadway bank blows up all over Giannoulias, then it will come down to how effectively he explains it to the voters, and the role of the Giannoulias family fortune. If they use the fortune to successfully rescue the bank, I think he’d be unbeatable.
In the governor’s race, however, you have a truly unprecedented failure by the Democrats to run this state. I don’t think they really have the slightest clue about how much they’ve alienated people. And Mike Madigan’s thinking on political strategy is 20 years out of date, and besides, simply not designed for a situation where the state is not only in deficit but in ARREARS, by several billion. Brady, as paleocon as he is, has to be considered competitive — as do lower level Republican candidates.
Comment by Angry Chicagoan Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 11:03 am
V-Man, I think this is the first time that I completely disagree with your assessment of the Senate Race–with the exception of everyone’s take on Obama’s support.
Comment by The REAL Anonymous fka Anonymous Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 11:06 am
===If that poll showing Brady beating Quinn is right - explain how that could be, beyond silly talking points===
My guess is that most people are unfamiliar with Brady, but they know Quinn pretty well. As Brady becomes more known, look for Rich Whitney’s numbers to surge.
Comment by 47th Ward Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 11:14 am
Broadway Bank will be burned into people’s heads IF the the Treasury Department has to infuse money to keep the bank afloat and/or if the FDIC and the Illinois Division of Banking takes action to shutter the bank or forces Broadway to sell off securities. Each is a distint possibility.
Comment by Team Sleep Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 11:22 am
The U.S. Senate poll states that 5% support “other.” Do those people mainly support conservatives or liberals? I hope that the anti-Alexi vote won’t split, helping Alexi win with 48% or 49%.
Comment by Conservative Veteran Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 11:28 am
I think most of the more prudent comments yesterday simply suggested the numbers seemed odd - the topline, perhaps, but more importantly, the male/female measure.
This poll shows a tight race. Other polls have shown a tight race. So it seems less odd to people who have been watching.
I think anyone getting their drawers in a bunch over either of these is making a mistake. Remember that IL normally has a very early primary…and normally it would be next Tuesday.
To paraphrase a reporter who wrote about the gov poll yesterday (from the Post Dispatch, I think); you’d have just as much luck predicting the weather on Election Day based on how the wind is blowing today as you would wagering on the election outcome based on these.
Comment by JonShibleyFan Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 11:32 am
VM without crosstabs, analysis is limited, but bumps in numbers right after big announcements are very common in politics. The next poll after there has been the passage of a little time will be a better window.
Comment by Ghost Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 12:34 pm
My guess is that most people are unfamiliar with Brady, but they know Quinn pretty well.
So you are saying that Brady has a chance if he disappears until December?
Comment by VanillaMan Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 12:36 pm
No VM, what I’m saying is I don’t think Quinn is going to let voters forget that he’s running against a very conservative Republican. Quinn’s ads will help the voters understand who Brady is.
Comment by 47th Ward Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 12:47 pm
Giannoulias comes across as a priviledged, slick, sharpie who reminds ordinary people of the types who were behind the mortgage balloon, etc. I am not making a partisan point; Brady may also seem like that.
Comment by MIke Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 12:57 pm
To add to it all, new Central Committeewoman Jennifer Laesch is telling people she is going to force Giannoulias to resign as Senate candidate and Mike Madigan to resign and Chairman of the Party. So much for Democratic Unity.
Comment by PinkGirl Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 12:58 pm
Brady has the full support of his base and Kirk does not. Alexi’s problems are not as bad with the DEM base as Quinn’s problems are. Thus, the poll results.
Comment by Cousin Ralph Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 1:03 pm
–…new Central Committeewoman Jennifer Laesch is telling people she is going to force Giannoulias to resign as Senate candidate and Mike Madigan to resign and Chairman of the Party.–
Wow. She must have extraordinary powers. Did she go to school at Hogwarts? What does she do for an encore?
Comment by wordslinger Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 1:04 pm
Don’t forget, these polls are just a snapshot of how voters feel at a given time around the greater Bloomington area and could change if Rassmussen ever gets a larger phone book.
Comment by Phineas J. Whoopee Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 1:07 pm
Carol Marin might want to check out this recent David Broder, March 4th Washington Post column, and his Axiom One:
Broder: “From too many years of covering politics, I have come to believe as Axiom One that the absolute worst advice politicians ever receive comes from journalists who fancy themselves great campaign strategists.”
Comment by ZC Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 1:17 pm
Carol is pitching some nonsense that Fox guys in DC were pushing Tuesday…guess whe know where her topics are coming from…BTW the punch line was that Rahm would be the replacement.
Comment by CircularFiringSquad Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 1:34 pm
“…bankers don’t need another vote in the U.S. Senate”
In other words, vote for Giannoulias since Kirk is a reliable vote for bankers (seeing as how they’re bankrolling him and all).
Only one candidate for Senate voted for the TARP bailout and that was Mr. Kirk.
Comment by Rob N Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 2:35 pm
[…] Now Giannoulias is getting a boost from, of all things, a Rasmussen Poll — it shows him jumping into a lead over Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) since last month. (Scott Rasmussen has confirmed to me that the leaked results are accurate.) Alexi Giannoulias (D) – 44 (+4) Mark Kirk (R) – 41 (-5) […]
Pingback by Poll: Democrat Bounces Back in IL-Sen Race | The Lie Politic Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 2:45 pm
When Alexi exits the senate race I hope the Dems go directly to Hoffman instead of asking for resumes on line.
Comment by next! Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 3:50 pm
Alexi has had a pretty tough week in the press…no doubt about that. One thing that we’ve learned, I believe, is that he can take a punch. Can Kirk? We don’t know, but we’ll certainly find out. It’s amazing to me that Giannoulias leads this race a.) after all the rough press re the bank b.) before a single negative of Kirk’s has been discussed, and c.) prior to any real help from the WH (which will certainly come.)
Giannoulias’ camp has also been working to put together the right team for a serious battle in Novemeber. New campaign manager (old one HAD to go, I’m told), new press secretary (one who’s been through a battle or two), and new finance director (Jordan Kaplan of Obama fame).
No doubt this is going to be a battle until the end, but I like what Alexi is doing to get ready for the fight.
Comment by Bardo2 Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 4:04 pm
“…he can take a punch. Can Kirk?”
Kirk has been through 2 cycles of bruising throw- everything-we-have-at-him-and-then-make-some-stuff-up campaigns. He can take a punch, but truth is there just isn’t much to hit him with.
Comment by 10th Indy Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 4:11 pm
There’s a pattern of S-T columnists using rhetorical devices to hurt Giannoulias and help Kirk. I wrote about Marin, Sneed and Steinberg contributing to the bias today.
Comment by Carl Nyberg Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 4:12 pm
I should add the Kirk’s numbers also reflect the fact that he has not campaigned South of I-80 so independents dont know much about him in a large part of the state.
Comment by Cousin Ralph Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 4:28 pm
i like mark kirk not being in the lead.
it means that for now alexi g. constantly has to keep looking over his shoulder ans sweating. and he is in a position in which he has agonizes over news related to his banking problems an how it plays out publicly.
alexi g.’s lead will continue to erode, for several reasons beyond just the banking matter.
Comment by Will County Woman Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 5:01 pm
I don’t get it. From Ramussen’s poll, Giannoulias was losing by 6 points 46-40 in Feb. before the Sun-Times and Tribune were reporting on the problems at Broadway. After two weeks of all negative news, Alexi’s numbers somehow go up to 44-41. I understand they’re asking different voters, it’s just a snapshot, it’s all within the margin of error. However, how does that make sense? You get pummeled for one month and you’re numbers go up?
Secondly, Angry Chicagoan, would like to please explain how Alexi is competent? AFter losing 85 million in Bright Start and lying about it? After helping run his family’s bank in the ground?
Comment by ? Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 6:10 pm
It’s sympathy. And, some articles released today are getting even more “descriptive” re: same.
Comment by The REAL Anonymous fka Anonymous Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 6:33 pm
. . .
Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 10:30 pm
Chicago Sun Times
Treasurer’s brother named
Another planning board candidate linked to Rezko, according to the records, was Dr. Ronald Michael, who has contributed $63,810 to Blagojevich’s campaign. Michael, too, was not appointed, though a Sun-Times report in October raised questions about how Blagojevich administration officials signed off on his purchase of a Downstate bank given that he had once headed a company that went bankrupt.
Rezko also pushed for the appointment of Chicago banker Demetris Giannoulias, brother of Democratic state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, to the Illinois Finance Authority board, records show.
Comment by Whistleblower Thursday, Mar 11, 10 @ 1:20 am